Accumulation by Dispossession and Its Limits: The Southern Africa Paradigm Revisited

Abstract

The dispossession of agricultural producers from the land has long been considered a condition of successful capitalist development. The main contention of this paper is that such dispossession has in fact become the source of major developmental handicaps for at least some and possibly many countries of the global South. We develop our argument by focusing on the South(ern) African experience as a paradigmatic outlier case of accumulation by dispossession-that is, as one of its extreme instances capable of highlighting in almost ideo-typical fashion its nature and limits. After reconstructing interpretations of capitalist development in Southern Africa that in the early 1970s established the region as a paradigm of accumulation by dispossession, we discuss how useful these interpretations are for understanding the more recent developmental trajectory of South Africa. We then suggest ways in which these interpretations from the 1970s should be reformulated in light of subsequent developments. We conclude by briefly examining the theoretical and policy implications of the analysis. St Comp Int Dev (2010) 45:410-438

Agrarian Transformation, Labour Supplies, and Proletarianization Process in Turkey: A historical Overview

“…In the rest of Turkey the land ownership situation improved further in favour of owner-occupied small farms after the Second World War, when a land distribution scheme led to a massive reclamation, increasing the area under cultivation by one-third, and to a de facto land reform. The new balance of widespread ownership brought Turkey closer to the East Asian pattern mentioned in Arrighi et al (2010) than the South African model that Giovanni Arrighi himself analysed in 1970. In East Asia agricultural producers were not dispossessed from the land; indeed, capitalist development was launched on the basis of a potential labour force that would maintain a close link to their village origins.…”

“…As Arrighi, Aschoff and Scully (2010) argue, deruralization, along with dispossession from the land, may "become the source of major developmental handicaps for at least some and possibly many countries of the global South" (Arrighi et al 2010: 436). These handicaps derive from the low wages that dispossession will lead to, and the implications of low wages for levels of poverty and the reproduction of the urban labour force.…”

“…In his writings on Africa, as well as on Calabria, his work straddles the process of change in the countryside, taking into account land ownership and relations of production, and migration from agriculture to other sectors where peasants become employed as wage earners (Arrighi/Saul 1968;Arrighi/Piselli 1987;Arrighi 1970;Arrighi et al 2010). Migrants arrive into capitalist relations of production with their past and present entanglements.…”

Da Acumulação Primitiva Aos Regimes De Desapropriação

“…Por um lado, essa tradição notoriamente minimizou a importância da desapropriação de terras para o desenvolvimento do capitalismo dentro dos países (Wallerstein, 2011(Wallerstein, [1989) e questionou seu vínculo com o desenvolvimento econômico de longo prazo (Arrighi & Pisselli, 1987;Arrighi, 2007;Arrighi, Aschoff & Scully, 2010). Visto que esses teóricos não definem o capitalismo por meio da relação do trabalho assalariado, eles não levam em consideração processos domésticos como os cercamentos ingleses, significativos para a identificação das origens do capitalismo ou até mesmo para a facilitação de acumulação capitalista.…”

Reflections on Calabria: A Critique of the Concept of 'Primitive Accumulation'

“…Using this concept, Arrighi convincingly showed that the dispossession of agricultural producers from the land, far from leading to successful capitalist development, has in fact become the source of major developmental handicaps for many countries of the global South (Arrighi et al 2010) 1 . Conversely, he also showed that the developmental success of China and its competitiveness on the global market was built on a tradition of accumulation without dispossession and of decentralized industrialization (Arrighi 2007;Arrighi et al 2010) 2 .…”